You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something–your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

In his manifesto, Stop Stealing Dreams, Seth Godin wrote how students today are educated in “collecting dots. Almost none of it spent teaching them the skills necessary to connect dots. The magic of connecting dots is that once you learn the techniques, the dots can change but you’ll still be good at connecting them.”

HELPING A CLIENT CONNECT DOTS

Recently, this came to light when I was speaking with a client who was noticing things needing correction and frustrated that employees were not seeing, and addressing, the same things.

I responded stating it’s not a flaw of his seeing things and wanting to improve them that was the problem. The actual problem was why his employees didn’t see those details.

I concluded that this was the single difference between the innovator and the ordinary person: one saw the dots and connected them while others 1) didn’t see them or 2) if they did, they didn’t explore, question, or connect any of them.

This aspect of constant attentiveness to how things are applies to companies, products, brands, as well as to personal brands and is the foundation for this thing we call innovation……..”

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“All CEOs lead their companies: that’s line No. 1 in the job description. But only a small subset also lead their industries and the wider world toward new visions and potentially brighter futures.

Stern & Associates, a Cranford, New Jersey public-relations firm whose clients include uber-visionary Clayton Christensen, advises business leaders who want to become known as thought leaders.

Inc. editor-at-large Leigh Buchanan spoke to the firm’s group vice president Ned Ward about how he advises clients to think big–and put it out there.

Define thought leader.

I would define a thought leader as someone who stands above subject-matter expertise and is an authority in their field. And they have to be able to prove that expertise with a track record. Think of it this way: subject-matter expertise resides within a company. Thought leadership resides within an industry. Thought leaders provide clarity, especially to industries that are in flux. They teach. And they have more ambitious goals. Thought leaders want to start a movement. Change the world. ”

“Newsnight economics editor Paul Mason interviewed Prof Castells in front of an audience at The London School of Economics for BBC Radio 4’s Analysis about his latest book Aftermath: The Cultures of the Economic Crisis.

Prof Castells suggests we may be about to see the emergence of a new kind of capitalism, with businesses growing out of the counter-cultures of the last 20 years. Here are some extracts from their conversation. :

Paul Mason: How big is this culture change?

“It is fundamental because it triggers a crisis of trust in the two big powers of our world: the political system and the financial system.

People don’t trust where they put their money and they don’t trust those who they delegate in terms of their vote.

“It’s a dramatic crisis of trust and if there is no trust, there is no society.

“What we are not going to see is the economic collapse per se because societies cannot work in a social vacuum. If the economic institutions don’t work, if the financial institutions don’t work, the power relations that exist in society change the financial system in ways favoured to the financial system and it doesn’t collapse. People collapse, not the financial system.

“The notion is the banks are going to be alright, we are not going to be alright. So there is a cultural change. A big one. Total distrust in the institutions of finance and politics.

“Some people start already living differently as they can – some because they want alternative ways of life, others because they don’t have any other choice.

“What I refer to is about the observation of one of my latest studies on people who have decided not to wait for the revolution – to start living differently – meaning the expansion of what I call in a technical term ‘non-capitalist practices’.

“They are economic practices but they don’t have a for-profit motivation – such as barter networks; such as social currencies; co-operatives; self-management; agricultural networks; helping each other simply in terms of wanting to be together; networks of providing services for free to others in the expectation that someone will also provide to you. All this exists and it’s expanding throughout the world.”

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AN : Profound treatise ! Do read the whole article and delve further into what is actively happening in this transformational, disruptive thinking area of real economics.

“Walt Disney Co. (DIS) agreed to buy George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion in cash and stock, adding “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” to a roster of film hits including “The Avengers” and “Finding Nemo.”

Lucas, 68, the sole owner, will receive half in cash and the balance in stock, becoming a major investor in the film, theme-park and TV company, according to a statement today from Burbank, California-based Disney. The first of a new trilogy of “Star Wars” films will be released in 2015, Disney said.

The deal brings Disney, which paid a combined $11 billion for Pixar and Marvel in the past decade, two of Hollywood’s most lucrative franchises. The “Star Wars” films have generated $4.54 billion in worldwide ticket sales, second to Warner Bros.’ “Harry Potter,” according to Box Office Mojo. “Indiana Jones” pictures have collected $1.95 billion.

“Dating all the way back to Walt Disney’s day, we learned the value of great content, characters, storytelling and great imaginary worlds,” Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger said in an interview.

The acquisition complements Iger’s focus on sequels and film franchises, fitting the same profile as the Marvel purchase three years ago.

“If Disney is really trying to focus on the tent-pole, event pictures, and given that this is something that has huge carryover value in the parks and merchandise business, it certainly makes sense,” said Matthew Harrigan, an analyst at Wunderlich Securities in Denver. “This is just the paradigm of the sustainable Hollywood franchise.”

AN : This report underscores the need to have those who are economic-centric understand the value of creativity and the creative arts. Yes ultimately it is about pure ejoyment of the expression of our God given talents , but it is also that such creative expression can be measured and monetized.

Too much emphasis is laid on economics as a driver. George Lucas, Steve Jobs et al opened whole new worlds, so to speak ,with their ways of thinking and what they thought up.

“The head of the Argentine Central Bank—Mercedes Marco del Pont–has been awarded the distinction as “the world’s worst central banker”. By whom, you might ask? Well, by Wall Street’s sycophantic press. Wall Street hates Mercedes. The woman, not the car.

Why? Well, for one thing she’s a woman. Wall Street hates female heads of central banks (take a look at the list of the top ten worst—3 out of 10 are female; then take a look at the 10 best, of which all but one are males.)

But that’s not anywhere near the most important reason. Ms. Marco del Pont kicked off the conference with a rousing talk, defending her central bank’s recent move away from a single mandate (inflation target) to pursuit of multiple mandates: financial stability, employment creation, and economic development with social equity. “

When Central Bankers begin to get the message and get out the message that economics is not enough…we are onto something.

“What Dostoevsky has to do with the hunchback of Notre Dame, Muhammad Ali, and dandelions.

As a firm believer in combinatorial creativity, I’m always interested in the ecosystem of influences and how we honor those who inspire us. Reader Will Shaw points me to this handwritten note by music icon Nick Cave entitled “More Things to Remember…,” courtesy of Melbourne’s Arts Centre, in which Cave lists some of his influences. Will writes:

“It is clear that Nick Cave was only able to reach his significant artistic heights through appropriating ideas and aesthetics from his heroes and influences and melding them into something uniquely powerful.” ”

AN : interdisciplinary pollination of influences and ideas applies to the Sciences as well as the Arts….